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Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Marriage - "The Battle Will Never Be Lost"

Pastors across California and the country are assessing this week the impact of last week's ruling by a homosexual, radical, activist judge, which struck down Proposition 8 and the definition of marriage in California as between one man and one woman.

California pastors and the people who listen to them are both grieved and outraged. By now you have heard or read the columns, blogs and commentaries that note that the judge sees nothing sacred, nor significant about natural, traditional marriage or the vote of the people to preserve it.However, it is the voice of Pastor John Milhouse of Calvary Chapel Moreno Valley that I heard above the grief and anger and celebration and promises that spoke a word of joy to my heart personally. Milhouse, who was deeply involved in the Prop. 8 campaign, said "he was saddened and acknowledged that people are saddened and frustrated that judges are determining what laws should be accepted by the people."

He said, "God performed the first wedding [and] our country has been founded on principles laid out in scripture."

All true. But it was his following comment that warmed my heart and gave rise to my spirit:

"I don't think the battle will ever be lost..."

He continued by saying our response should always be to pray and do what we do in love, because we are not anti-people and we aren't anti-gays---but "we don't agree with their lifestyle."

After hearing a former Christian lobbyist in Olympia tell the Seattle press he feels the marriage battle is lost and reading comments by pastors and leaders defending the absence of their voice and influence from the cultural battle for marriage, family and the sanctity of life and endless lectures on the history of culture and our "Post Christian culture" and the mandate for the emerging church in such a culture, it is refreshing beyond measure to simply hear a pastor tell a national news outlet, "I don't think the battle will ever be lost..."

Thank you Pastor Milhouse for reminding us that their are eternal principles. Principles worth standing for in cultural victory and defeat. And those principles will not be banished from the human experience.

9 comments:

You're right, "the battle for marriage" won't ever be lost. Not because you are going to succeed in denying a minority equal rights, but because marriage equality will have no effect whatsoever on so-called "traditional marriages". All it will mean is all citizens sharing equally in the civil institutions of our nation.

You are wrong on one thing though, you and this group are anti-gay. Not because you "don't agree with their lifestyle", but because you seek use to the full power and force of government(at the point of a gun or under threat of violence is the preferred conservative terminology re:taxes) to deny "them" the right to live any "lifestyle" "they" choose, just as you enjoy the same rights. It's not that you "don't agree with their lifestyle", but the fact that you actively oppose inclusion of LGBT Americans under hate crimes laws, which already protect you, that makes you anti-gay. It's the fact that you support legal and constitutional changes in developing countries (see Uganda) that impose the death penalty for homosexuality that makes you anti-gay.

If you were just going about your own business while you "don't agree with their lifestyle" no one would even think to label you anti-gay. The fact is any objective review of your positions and actions would lead to the accurate conclusion that they are anti-gay. You can grumble all you like, you can try and play the victim like your friend Maggie Gallagher, but the fact remains you are promoting an anti-gay agenda.

Right on Milhouse! The truth is that true Christians are not against people at all. It is the sinful (wrong way of doing things) lifestyle that we are up against. If we ignore the signs and do nothing than that sin of men (people with the wrong mind set), begin to pollute our society by changing laws and pushing their own agendas. And in present reality this is exactly what we have been observing. If you look at any empire or superpower before our day and age you will quickly discover a repeating pattern. It is immorality and godless people that destroy a nation. Let’s keep on standing together for the truth, for God and for all of us! Remember religion kills more people than wars do. Never be religious. Truly loving one another and reminding each other of the real values that God originally created, that are good in nature and good for us, that’s our cause.

I think we should be more upset with the defense since they only had what 2 witness - that with the idea that there were what over 2 million voters who aproved Prop 8. How can we defend our position if we only give them 2 witness' and to top it off they helped the other side? this is what is really got me going. how do argue a case lopsided like that!

Gary, I appreciate your strong stand on fundamental beliefs. We have recently left our church because our pastor would not stand for anything, especially if it might be controversial. God bless and keep you.

What you folks don't seem to realize is that it wouldn't have mattered if the California vote was 14 million to none - it's only legal if it doesn't violate the US Constitution (not the California one). The judge did his job and now the Supreme Court will probably do theirs. That's how it works under our system of laws. It's only majority rules if it doesn't violate the constitution.

Also, your side claimed it was only following the Bible when it fought inter-racial marriage and equal rights for women. What? None of you are against those things? Oh, that was your parents. Accordingly, you are the future bigots of the past.

1. the Judge did consider everybody. Your side was simply unable to present anything approaching a credible case, read the transcript and the decision it's all there.

2. What you propose in your post sound an awful lot like living under sharia law for us non-Christians. Last I checked the First Amendment gave us a much right to live according to our beliefs as it does you. I am no more willing to live in dhimmitude under a Christianist theocracy than I am a Muslim one.